Developing Expectation - Starter House Hacking in Virginia

[David Minter]

Hello everyone!  I am trying to figure out if getting into real estate investing is a good fit for me in this stage of my life, and would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions!

A little bit about me:
I live in northern Virginia, am working towards financial independence, might get married in the next 2 years, and believe that most of my wealth generation will come from something outside of real estate.

My predicament:
I really like the concept of house hacking and how it can reduce my monthly expenses. Average property I've seen in my area goes for $600k. If I get a FHA loan with 3.5% down that's $21k. Ideally, I rent out the other rooms and live rent free. Spend $21k to save $1k/mo sounds pretty great to me, I know that is an overly simplified scenario. In northern Virginia there are no duplexes or ADUs, there is a limit to 1 family + 2 renters or 4 unrelated people per unit, and with the high house prices I would need a higher number of renters for their rent to pay the mortgage payment in full. So I was thinking about buying a place with a basement and living in the basement while renting out the rest of the house. I have found a few places that come close to making the numbers work with 3 renters, but once I get married I'd have to downsize to 2 renters (if I understand the ordinances correctly) and would then be pretty far from being able to live rent free.

My questions:
1) Is rent free house hacking in northern Virginia a realistic expectation, and I just need to keep looking?
2) Is there a different/better way to do house hacking where I'm at?  I'd prefer to have a separate unit feel even if it's not completely separate, like living in the basement.
3) Does your house hacking strategy change once you get a family, who probably need more space than a single guy?
4) If I only plan to use real estate as a relatively small portion of my financial independence journey is it worth doing? I know it can be profitable, but I'm wondering if you get the ROI time and energy wise if you're less involved. Or maybe another way to put it is that it scales really well once you get going and get some good practice in, but is it worth the time and energy to do at a small scale while having other investments as the main source of wealth generation?

Thanks!